Oh, you must mean like Cox, in Las Vegas, who just forced us to start using tuning adapters on their already 1GHz network, while still continuing to provide analog service. Talk about idiotic...

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We still have about 35 channels that are analog only. No simulcast and no HD equivelents. Right now I use an Elite for most stuff, but still have to use a regular Premiere for all the analog channels. We've been using TAs for about 3 years now. The only thing I can figure is that they started using SDV to increase bandwidth for OnDemmand, because we have no got any new channels in at least 7 years.

We still have about 35 channels that are analog only. No simulcast and no HD equivelents. Right now I use an Elite for most stuff, but still have to use a regular Premiere for all the analog channels. We've been using TAs for about 3 years now. The only thing I can figure is that they started using SDV to increase bandwidth for OnDemmand, because we have no got any new channels in at least 7 years.

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The issue for these MSOs in abandoning analog is forcing their customers to add DTAs to multiple TVs in their households. I'm sure they would experience increased churn from unhappy customers so its easier for them to maintain the analog footprint at this point...

There is a cable service here in PA, Service Electric, that still has about 70 analogs. They compress the hell out of their digital and HD channels, but at least they simulcast those channels.

Up until recently the only HD premium channels they had were HBO and Showtime. Only in the last month or so they added a couple more HBO and Showtime HD channels. They might have ditched a few analogs recently to make room for them.

We're very lucky to have a rare 3 choices here. Service Electric, RCN and Fios. SE is the only analog hold-out. They picked up a lot of RCN customers when RCN went all-digital a few years ago and forced TA's. They've been holding off on the analog crush as long as possible.

Simulcasting 35 SD channels wouldn't take up that much space. And there's almost no excuse if they're using SDV too. That's really kind of strange.

One enhancement to padding I'd like to see is the ability to pad two shows back to back on the same channel without it needing two tuners. Seems like it would be simple enough for them to share the data between the two shows.

Another would be an automatic 1 minute padd on both ends if it doesn't cause a conflict. An extra 2 minutes per show isn't going to hurt anyone's space these days and this would eliminate the frustration of missing that last line or final bit.

[rant]
Or maybe the broadcasters can get their act together, stop jerking us around, and just start things in proper time slots. The current practice is childish. Yeah, I understand why they do it, but I still think it is a childish practice.
[/rant]

One enhancement to padding I'd like to see is the ability to pad two shows back to back on the same channel without it needing two tuners. Seems like it would be simple enough for them to share the data between the two shows.

Another would be an automatic 1 minute padd on both ends if it doesn't cause a conflict. An extra 2 minutes per show isn't going to hurt anyone's space these days and this would eliminate the frustration of missing that last line or final bit.

There is a cable service here in PA, Service Electric, that still has about 70 analogs. They compress the hell out of their digital and HD channels, but at least they simulcast those channels.

Up until recently the only HD premium channels they had were HBO and Showtime. Only in the last month or so they added a couple more HBO and Showtime HD channels. They might have ditched a few analogs recently to make room for them.

We're very lucky to have a rare 3 choices here. Service Electric, RCN and Fios. SE is the only analog hold-out. They picked up a lot of RCN customers when RCN went all-digital a few years ago and forced TA's. They've been holding off on the analog crush as long as possible.

Simulcasting 35 SD channels wouldn't take up that much space. And there's almost no excuse if they're using SDV too. That's really kind of strange.

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Each analog SD channel uses as much space as 10 or more SD digital or two HD channels. And that is for a system that doesn't compress alot. When compressing more, like Comcast does is my area, then one analog SD channel takes as much space as three HD channels.

Removing those 35 analog channels would free up alot of space. Enough to add 70 to 105 HD channels. Each analog channel wastes alot of bandwidth.

One thing I fail to understand the logic of, is nearly every time somebody comes up with something they would like to see in a new model of TiVo, somebody says how easy it is to state, but how hard it would be to implement.

WHY, should it have to be EASY???

We pay premium prices, for what are supposed to be premium products. Yet, some people seem to think new, or improved, functionality, should only be taken seriously, if it's easy to implement.

With that mindset, why even bother to release new products, other than to call them "new"? The ONLY reason to do that is to make money, by calling it new, designating what came before it "old", and taking money from the masses of people who blindly pay money for anything that is the newest, whether or not is actually worth bothering with, or is anything more than a recycled, re-badged, kludge of the same old, same old, called "new"... It's counterintuitive, but it's a market, all on its own. It's truly sad, that consumers make a market for this type of thing.

There are so many "features" that have existed in nearly every TiVo, that could be improved upon, and haven't been, through each generation.

If I want to watch Netflix, Hulu Plus, play games, and/or interact with social media, I already have multiple existing products that do these things, do them well, and about the only thing none of these products are is a DVR!

So, my wish would be for TiVo to leave these extras to the products that already exist, do them well, and regularly update the features, and fix problems, in a timely fashion, and, instead, FOCUS on producing the very best DVR money can buy, and use the resources of the product to enhance a robust DVR.

You can't even buy many devices anymore, which connect to a TV, that don't have all this extra stuff already in them.

Just think of what TiVo could produce, if they focused on the part they do best: Providing an alternative to a cable company provided DVR.

Sometimes I think some people actually want TiVo's core DVR functionality to stay the same, and not to actually evolve into a better product. What next, Angry Birds on TiVo? Why not, it fits the pattern of TiVo's stale DVR innovation, and the quest for the "One Box"... Like I said, it's sad.

If the highest authority told TiVo engineers to strip out all the extras, that every other device attached to, or built-into, a TV already provides, and prohibited them from anything more than engineering advances, improvements, innovations, and other built-in functionality, that relate to a DVR and improving the DVR experience, interaction with the other devices in a home, just think of what kind of product we could have from TiVo...

I think some of this "That wouldn't be easy to implement, so it's unlikely" talk, is more a reflection/projection of a "Just leave everything like it is and bung-in as many tuners as you possibly can, and do it quickly, because I want something new" mentality.

Again, why should everything people suggest be in a new generation TiVo, or guess may be in one, have to be easy?

IMHO, if everything they add, or change, comes easy, it then shouldn't be worth a price, other than one that reflects how easy it was to make and slap a new model/generation designation onto it.

Edit/Add: The biggest issue I have with consumer electronics manufacturers releasing "new" products, just for the sake of doing so, is that it gives them an easy excuse to stop providing bug-fixes, support, and improvements to existing products, which get premature end-of-life designations, just because of the released "newer" models. This often leaves those with "old" models, designated end-of-life, while there's no real reason those products can't be improved, fixed, or supported. The only indication I see of TiVo making an exception, is that there are reports of an 11.0m software update for the S3 platform (which may only be to resolve the TiVo Desktop cookie issue). There's a thread about this spotted-in-the-wild update, for those who want to check into it, or discuss it.

One thing I fail to understand the logic of, is nearly every time somebody comes up with something they would like to see in a new model of TiVo, somebody says how easy it is to state, but how hard it would be to implement.

WHY, should it have to be EASY???

We pay premium prices, for what are supposed to be premium products. Yet, some people seem to think new, or improved, functionality, should only be taken seriously, if it's easy to implement.

With that mindset, why even bother to release new products, other than to call them "new"? The ONLY reason to do that is to make money, by calling it new, designating what came before it "old", and taking money from the masses of people who blindly pay money for anything that is the newest, whether or not is actually worth bothering with, or is anything more than a recycled, re-badged, kludge of the same old, same old, called "new"... It's counterintuitive, but it's a market, all on its own. It's truly sad, that consumers make a market for this type of thing.

There are so many "features" that have existed in nearly every TiVo, that could be improved upon, and haven't been, through each generation.

If I want to watch Netflix, Hulu Plus, play games, and/or interact with social media, I already have multiple existing products that do these things, do them well, and about the only thing none of these products are is a DVR!

So, my wish would be for TiVo to leave these extras to the products that already exist, do them well, and regularly update the features, and fix problems, in a timely fashion, and, instead, FOCUS on producing the very best DVR money can buy, and use the resources of the product to enhance a robust DVR.

You can't even buy many devices anymore, which connect to a TV, that don't have all this extra stuff already in them.

Just think of what TiVo could produce, if they focused on the part they do best: Providing an alternative to a cable company provided DVR.

Sometimes I think some people actually want TiVo's core DVR functionality to stay the same, and not to actually evolve into a better product. What next, Angry Birds on TiVo? Why not, it fits the pattern of TiVo's stale DVR innovation, and the quest for the "One Box"... Like I said, it's sad.

If the highest authority told TiVo engineers to strip out all the extras, that every other device attached to, or built-into, a TV already provides, and prohibited them from anything more than engineering advances, improvements, innovations, and other built-in functionality, that relate to a DVR and improving the DVR experience, interaction with the other devices in a home, just think of what kind of product we could have from TiVo...

I think some of this "That wouldn't be easy to implement, so it's unlikely" talk, is more a reflection/projection of a "Just leave everything like it is and bung-in as many tuners as you possibly can, and do it quickly, because I want something new" mentality.

Again, why should everything people suggest be in a new generation TiVo, or guess may be in one, have to be easy?

IMHO, if everything they add, or change, comes easy, it then shouldn't be worth a price, other than one that reflects how easy it was to make and slap a new model/generation designation onto it.

Edit/Add: The biggest issue I have with consumer electronics manufacturers releasing "new" products, just for the sake of doing so, is that it gives them an easy excuse to stop providing bug-fixes, support, and improvements to existing products, which get premature end-of-life designations, just because of the released "newer" models. This often leaves those with "old" models, designated end-of-life, while there's no real reason those products can't be improved, fixed, or supported. The only indication I see of TiVo making an exception, is that there are reports of an 11.0m software update for the S3 platform (which may only be to resolve the TiVo Desktop cookie issue). There's a thread about this spotted-in-the-wild update, for those who want to check into it, or discuss it.

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In the most recent instance, the poster explicitly said it should be easy. Plus given the level of competence exhibited by the current TiVo s/w development team, I really don't want them taking on something difficult until they fix the existing problems and develop a much more robust testing regime.

TiVo is a business. How do you suggest they justify to their stockholders allocating the resources necessary to implement some of these features, particularly on platforms which are generating little if any revenue?

In the most recent instance, the poster explicitly said it should be easy. Plus given the level of competence exhibited by the current TiVo s/w development team, I really don't want them taking on something difficult until they fix the existing problems and develop a much more robust testing regime.

TiVo is a business. How do you suggest they justify to their stockholders allocating the resources necessary to implement some of these features, particularly on platforms which are generating little if any revenue?

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In hindsight, I see I went off on a full-scale, long-winded rant, which I had been trying not to do, by repeatedly not posting anything in this thread, even though I typed up quite a few posts, which I chose not to submit.

However, what are you saying? We should just accept that TiVo is incompetent, in nearly all aspects of their business, other than duping the customer, and we should alter our expectations accordingly? We should not ask them to do anything, except fix existing products, accept that the "new" products, are just "fixed old products" with new model/platform designations?

I'm not trying to be condescending towards you. I do feel TiVo deserves some condescension directed at them, however.

The issue for these MSOs in abandoning analog is forcing their customers to add DTAs to multiple TVs in their households. I'm sure they would experience increased churn from unhappy customers so its easier for them to maintain the analog footprint at this point...

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Comcast did it. Churn to where? I say that ironically, as I live in one of the very, very few places where you could have switched to the other cable company to get analog when Comcast finally killed it. In most places, the cable provider is the only provider to have analog support.

Analog has no place on a modern cable network. Nor does MPEG-2 HD, but that's another story entirely. A network that was running even just an 860mhz plant with all MPEG-4 HD's and no analog would have a boatload of bandwidth. These providers have artificial bandwidth crunches by their unwillingness to get rid of technology that's been dead for 5-10 years.

However, what are you saying? We should just accept that TiVo is incompetent, in nearly all aspects of their business, other than duping the customer, and we should alter our expectations accordingly? We should not ask them to do anything, except fix existing products, accept that the "new" products, are just "fixed old products" with new model/platform designations?

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I'm not saying that at all. Even if TiVo's s/w design and and development process weren't flawed, they do not have unlimited resources AND most of the enhancements being requested benefit a small minority of their customer base, both existing and potential and/or are far more difficult to implement than a lot of people seem to think, particularly if you consider all of the ramifications of making that "simple" change.

How exactly is TiVo "duping" anyone? All prior models of TiVos still work properly and still get guide data updates and they are reportedly fixing the expired cookie problem on all models of TiVo that are affected, i.e. Series 2 and later.

I'm not trying to defend TiVo here, but the main problem is the flawed releases for the Series 4, not the lack of enhancements to the Series 3.